HELIOS SS24 "Estrangement"

Zine Director

Franklin Dong Staff Writers

Devon Lee

Dee Kwong

Cassidy Crockett

Bianca Taller

Photographers

Shirley Zhang

Hailey Kim

Graphic Designers

Luke McKane

Catherine Zhu

Special Thanks To Our Models

and the Executive Board of the NYU Luxury and Retail Association and its General Members

Luke Hopkins Campbell Moon Jung Hana Lee

Table of Contents

Cover Story

By Franklin, Cassidy, Dee, Devon

Zine Team Interviews

A Celebration of Process

Witness: A Photography Exhibition

Ephemerality: A Photography Exhibition & Other Creative Pieces

The window in my bedroom provides me with a stunning view of Union Square and a distant Manhattan skyline. The spring rain would often unfold to a brilliant sunset, and the clouds would bloom under the caress of a brilliant glowing sun. The concrete and glass and metal are gifted with a similar gentleness, and the crowds of people on the ground seem to find themselves in such comfort that they do not even feel the need to look up.

Next to Union Square Park and the beautiful, complacent scenery is a massive LED display board with a countdown on it. Its purpose is to warn civilians that in about 5 years, climate change will become irreversible and our planet would be doomed. The clock is quite literally ticking.

It seems like a time bomb, a scene out of a movie where the mechanic sounds of the countdown matches with the audience’s quickening heartbeat, but it doesn’t feel like that at all. Instead, the gigantic neon red numbers stand in silent contrast to the skyline, the spring rain and its clouds. It is not violent but just disturbing, eerie, uncomfortable. Perhaps it really is like what T.S. Eliot said. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but with a whimper.

This feeling perfectly captures the concept of Estrangement, the sudden unsettling realization that something we’ve always had isn’t what we thought it was. We thought our fantasies of progress would rescue us from our habits of overconsumption, but we are being proved wrong with every passing second. This feeling can also be extremely personal: standing in front of the mirror and realizing that your reflection is so familiar yet unbearably strange at the same time. It is this feeling of uncanniness that disturbs us and provokes us into thinking about who we actually are.

And who are we… if not a performance? A process of becoming? The intrinsic reason for our natural yearning for self expression lies in the fact that self expression helps us center ourselves and better orient who and what we are. The way we walk, the way we dress, are all parts of a story that we first tell ourselves and then to the rest of the world.

By Frankin Dong

It is a direct confrontation with and overcoming of the usual feeling of Estrangement, because it gives us so much autonomy to decide who we are.

It grounds us; it protects us.

Over  Spring Break I visited my family in Los Angeles. Whenever I am home, I always raid my mothers closet, looking for new pieces that I can incorporate into my wardrobe.. When I walk into her closet, I go straight to the old oak jewelry box that has collected miscellaneous jewelry over the years, most of it I have seen, and I tend to pull pieces that fit the trends at the moment. This time, I opened a small bottom drawer and discovered a large abalone fish charm, carved out of different parts of the shell to create contrast on the flat pendant.  This isn’t the first time I have seen this charm, I tend to brush over it, but this time I felt that it would look really nice on a cord to become a necklace, something very ‘in’ right now.

Later that day, I went to visit my grandmother. She catches the gleaming reflection of the opalescent abalone charm around  my neck. “I remember when your great grandfather carved that, he gave it to my mother for her birthday.” For the rest of the night she told me stories of her fathers jewelry making and woodworking hobbies. I had absolutely no idea that the fish charm from my mothers small oak drawer held such a personal story to my family, one that I only would have been able to learn from my grandmother.  I don’t see her often, I live across the country, and I don’t always have time to drive over to her. I have never met my great grandparents, I just have seen a few images of them, and a sprinkle of stories. But because of that charm, I now know about a man so important to my grandmother.

Estrangement is a strange thing. Oftentimes, with family, it can be a result of trauma, abuse, feud, etc. and family estrangement is on the rise in our new generation. The youth no longer feel the need to tie themselves to people that hold them back. But other times, estrangement can be a result of simply not having contact with someone, alienating yourself from family due to moving forward with your life, often resulting in an immense amount of guilt. When I put on that necklace, I no longer feel as estranged from my family and its history as I continue with my new life 3,000 miles away.

By Cassidy Crockett

Fashion is expression. pieces that you are.

Ask the stories

You may just feel from this alienating

is a form of self expression. You select that represent who

As vintage clothing is on the rise, consider, if you are lucky enough, to look through the wardrobes of family members, or even attend estate sales. stories about pieces you find. feel a little less estranged alienating world.

The oldest lie perpetuated by humanity is the notion that we are not destined for solitude.

Every day, we passionately play our roles to maintain an orbit of companionship, fearing the emptiness of alienation.

We continuously morph ourselves, adapting to the diverse crowds we encircle, fearing rejection from even a single soul. But, engaging in a prolonged performance of such an act can lead to a gradual erosion of the self, unnoticed until it’s too late— slowly one shall be quietly devoured by oblivion and grinded out like ash.

We are formed from stardust and destined to return to it.

We are clusters of stars, hopelessly orbiting around each other, drawn by gravity to the closest proximity, a fleeting brush at the edge of an eclipse, yet inevitably drifting apart, never to touch, back into the icy depths of space.

Constellations are a construct created by man,  Founded upon the perspective of a single planet within a single universe—our own—falsely assuming centrality in the vast expanse of the cosmos. Our innate hubris.

We have fabricated a fantasy to nurture our own forlornness.

Orion, for instance, is a fabrication of human interpretation, not a natural occurrence.  We have taken the stars gifted to us and woven them into art, myth, and narrative, reflecting our innate inclination to find significance beyond our solitary existence on this planet.

In essence, to be human is to grapple with the inherent loneliness of our condition, perpetually seeking meaning elsewhere in the universe. We believe art can save us.

How violently in love we are with our alienation, killing hundreds, enslaving thousands, just to lavish our millions in a futile plea to the void around us–asking, who are you? But more importantly, who are we?

We expend our sums in pursuit of a new identity, perhaps one less burdened by solitude. We bestow names upon robots, seeking semblances of personality within lines of code, trying to recreate ourselves or fabricate a soulmate,  but at the end of the day its intelligence is still artificial.

What is it that we seek to supplant if not our very selves? or perhaps, What initially abandoned us to solitude?

Plato recounts that humans were originally one entity, possessing such a power that a deity divided us in retribution for our hubris. Consequently, we are condemned to traverse the earth in pursuit of our purported other half. Thus, we employ every facet of our physical and mental being, feigning roles contrary to our true selves. Empathy is acquired, goodness manufactured, and within the vast expanse of emptiness, we exist as fractured beings, clutching at a needle and thread, ever hopeful of discovering the elusive other half we instinctively yearn for yet are destined never to encounter. It is through this hopeful act of stitching ourselves back together that we seek a sense of wholeness once again.

Perhaps estrangement and isolation aren’t merely a transient of existence but integral facets of humanity itself. We conceive these narratives because the notion that our estrangement is innate is too daunting to accept.

And yet,  As we, clusters of stars, force ourselves to engage in our depressing dance of pull and spin with one another, _______

By Devon Lee

We gaze in admiration at shooting stars whose sole mission is to journey across the vast expanse of space, solitary yet radiant.

Estrangement offers comfort, deceivingly. It murmurs loneliness, persuading us that we stand alone, only to say, "I'm your friend." Like a tangled web, estrangement ensnares us, offering a sense of security yet lines its netting with barbed wire. As solace, we overboard ourselves with external influences, hoping to fill the void within. Why strive for change when the familiarity of solitude seems safer than vulnerability?

Yet, proper healing takes time. Somewhere in the process of living, I had become my voyeur, peering through a keyhole towards myself. I could not escape from my judgment, as each movement . came with scrutiny. I envied the past not because of some bullshit like nostalgia but because of my sense of naivety. After all, you can recklessly swim in the ocean because you are unaware of the shark that swims underneath.

Healing is more than time its less talked-about counterpart requires mourning because every pre-conceived notion you thought to have known about yourself shatters. I had carried myself with secureness and confidence, but what do you do when you’re left to pick up the pieces of who you once were? Healing is not just about moving forward; it's about mourning the parts of yourself you thought you already knew.

In a world that romanticizes such feelings of isolation, estrangement may seem like the only way to heal if you lack the ability to reconcile. Congested with digitized trends and broken communication, we become susceptible to a cycle of self-alienation, further splintering our identities into a shattered mirror. Then you spend your entire life mending your fractures only to realize you can’t fix what’s broken. It takes time but eventually, you let your fingers trace over each crack.

First, it tugs at your skin.

Then, the feeling fades. You have cracks like no other.

By Dee Kwong

You have mended yourself like no other, and a feeling of washespeace forth.

Meet the Zine Team

Interviews with:

Franklin Dong, Shirley Zhang, Luke McKane, Catherine Zhu, Dee Kwong, Cassidy Crockett, Bianca Taller

FRANKLIn

LM: Hello Franklin!

FD: Hi!

Franklin DONGzine director Dong,

LM: And can you explain your object?

LM: Our question for you is if you could have dinner with one person dead or alive, who would it be?

FD: I think it’d probably be my dad. I'm an international student. I left home when I was 15 so I've been traveling back and forth a lot since I was 15. And I'm an only child so it's really just my parents and me and my core family. I'm really close with my mom, not as much with my dad, and I think growing up it's always been kind of difficult to really even get along at times, and I think I really do miss him. I haven't seen him in over a year. So I think, yeah, if I had the chance, I definitely would have dinner with him and kind of talk about how I am and how he was when he was my age and stuff like that.

FD: Yeah, so this is my … this is a wooden figure or sculpture, I guess, that my friend gave me. This is something that his grandfather made. I think his grandfather is like a professional Russian wood sculptor I think. Or he's Uzbekistan, so he's like an Uzbek wood sculptor. This is really cool because I can't really tell what this is. It's kind of like a deer-type thing, it has a lot of antlers, it has a little rock here, and I think it's very cute because it sits on my desk and it always kind of reminds me of something that is everlasting, that is, our friendship. It always means a lot when he gave something that his grandparents made so I guess it has a special meaning to it. He's abroad right now in London, so this makes me think about him and remember him.

Shirley Zhang, photographer

FD: Hi Shirley!

SZ: Hi!

FD: Your question is: “How did you know that you are no longer a kid anymore?”

SZ: I realized that I'm no longer a kid when I first got my cat and started taking care of my cat. It's a new responsibility for me to feed her, clean her litter box, and spend time with her. Instantly I get on this parent role where I feel like I'm taking care of a kid, and now she's the only thing in my camera roll and the only thing I talk about with my friends. Like even now she's a big part of my life. Because she's my company and we have this mutual connection. So yeah.

FD: Do you want to talk about your camera and why it’s important too?

SZ: Yeah, so this is my camera. It's a film camera. I really like shooting on film because it captures the instant moment of a certain point of your life and it's not alterable. This camera was gifted from my friend and I've been using it since then. It has captured a lot of critical moments in my life, so that's why it's very important.

FD: Hi Luke!

LM: Hello Franklin!

FD: The question for you is: What does home mean to you?

LM: For me … I've been thinking about this since you asked the question. I don't have an exact answer. The first thing I thought of when you asked it was my first experience going back home for break. I was kind of worried on the flight back — I’m from San Francisco — like thinking about, will it be weird? Is my new home New York? And I noticed really kind of the second I got back that San Francisco is home. I love San Francisco, I think it’s a beautiful city, but the one thing I realized when I was there is that it's not that I got two versions of myself. But like there kind of is a New York Luke and a San Francisco Luke. And so they're not entirely different, but they are slightly different. And it got me thinking I'm kind of excited to see how they merge more over time. I live in new places, how that merges. So I think home is less the place itself and more so the person you are in that location. And so I think the reason I can easily say that San Francisco is home is because I know who San Francisco Luke is, but I'm still kind of figuring out who New York Luke is. And so I think once I get that more, I guess, solidified, I'll feel more comfortable calling New York home.

FD: Awesome. Thank you. Do you want to explain what your object is?

LM: So unfortunately I don't actually have it, but it does kind of relate to the question. It's my home key, I have a LEGO Spider-Man keychain on it. I love that thing. I mean, it's two of my favorite things: LEGO and Spider-Man. So kind of having that together, it was awesome. It was a gift from my parents, like a while ago that I just kind of always had in my pocket. It's kind of a — at first it was weird to always have cause I'm used to the phone, wallet, LEGO figure. It was kind of like a weird thing to have, it just became normal, and I'd pull it out and people would be like ‘Why do you have a LEGO figure in your pocket?’ Because it's Spider Man. It's just kind of a thing I always had. And so, yeah, I don't have it on me. It's still back home just because I don't need my home key in New York. But I do miss it. It was – it was a fun thing to just kind of always have in the pocket.

Luke McKane, graphic designer

Catherine Zhu, graphic designer

FD: Hi Catherine!

CZ: Hi

FD: The question for you is, what is one thing that you wish you had done differently?

CZ: One thing I would’ve done differently… I wish I didn’t get in the way of myself as much, especially in recent years, and pursued more opportunities without fear, especially artistically. I don’t know what else to say. That if I had the willpower, had the confidence… I just think my life would have been different. And you know how they say you should never have any regrets? I do think this is my one regret, because I do think that my life would’ve been better. But who knows? Maybe not.

CZ: I brought some of my old journals. These are really important to me because they’re like a little time capsule of my experiences. Some of them were for photos, some of them were feelings, some of them are specific to a time period, and I think that, you know if I - these are products that I will leave behind and they’re evidence of who I was as a character, the relationships I had with people, I don’t know. They’re just really important to me because it’s important to me to document parts of my life so I don’t forget them and I can look back and be really grateful for them.

It’s important to me to document parts of my life so I don’t forget them and can I look back and be really grateful for them.

Dee Kwong, writer

FD: Hi Dee. Your question is: “Do you believe in the concept of right person, wrong time?”

DK: Hmm okay, so if you ever watched La La Land, that movie, that hit me in the feels, where it's basically the right person, wrong time concept, but in a way, when I was watching it - obviously I was really sad - but I think if you look at the bigger picture, wrong time doesn't necessarily exist because they made an impact on your life, and I feel like people come and go, and even though they do go and leave, they did the right thing for you and you can look back at it, treasure it, obviously be sad about it, but I, I don't think wrong time exists, because in my head, it was sort of meant to be and it was meant that you were to separate ways than just kind of come to terms with it. Yeah.

FD: Awesome. Do you want to explain to us what you're sitting on right now?

DK: This thing? So this thing has been with me for like 20 years. It's a stool that I grew up with. If you’re from an Asian immigrant household you've probably seen this stool.

I remember my grandma would be making dinner and I would be sitting on this watching TV and eating my little dinner, and sometimes my grandparents just sit on it. Like everybody in my family has sat on this at some point. And it's pretty crazy, like in 20 years. It's been 20 years. This thing has still been with me. So yeah, I very much love it. It's kind of broken though. I was trying to get something from the kitchen and I kind of broke it right here and you can see the crack.

Cassidy Crockett, writer

FD: Hi Cassidy

CC: Hello

FD: The question for you is, what is one thing that you found out about yourself that surprised you?

CC: Um… well coming to college, I realized that there were a lot of people that had no idea who they were, and I kind of started fresh just like everyone else did. And I was told a lot that I was a very extroverted person, and that I could talk to many people, and I guess that kind of just attracted people.

And I was really surprised to hear this because in high school I was a total nerd, I think I had a total of 2 friends, I could count all my friends on one hand. Super quiet - and I loved it. And I spent all my time in my room, I never went to parties, and I guess that relates to my item which is a camera, and this is something that allows me to balance the two because I usually have to ask people to take their photos - I love taking photos of people.

And I also get to look at the photos later on and capture little details that I notice in my head that are just something that I guess both an extroverted and an introverted person would do, I guess that’s how I balance the two.

Bianca Taller, writer

FD: Hi Bianca, your question is, when was the last time you cooked for someone and what did you make?

BT: Um… the last time I cooked for someone was actually this morning for me and my roommate, Laura. I cooked a very simple breakfast which is what I grew up with. It’s a soft boiled egg, which sounds bland but it’s great. I promise. Um… toast, but instead of doing it with butter and jam, my grandmother would always put it with olive oil and just toast on a pan. She said it was better for you and that it was healthier and that it was good for you. So I made it with that, and then I made it with some olives and we had just cut up grapefruit and orange and we had actually our favorite tea. Which is PG Tips with a dash of milk, and that was breakfast. We had it in our apartment, I just live with her. We had our little round white table, and my dead roses that everyone loves to point out. And it was so lovely, it was very nice.

FD: Do you want to talk about your object?

BT: Yes, I was honestly thinking about what I wanted to bring, whether it was a piece of jewelry or, because jewelry is very special to me. Whenever someone gives me something whether it’s earrings or rings I just keep it forever. I wear my moms jewelry that she wore when she was a kid. Sometimes my grandmother’s, my sister’s, really everything. So I was thinking about that, and although that’s really special to me, I wanted to have something that had more connection to things that I’m interested in, and more about myself, so I brought this picture of, um, Nonna and my grandfather. Who are pictured right here [shows photograph]. And next to them are all of their friends, with when they first immigrated to the states. And my grandmother was telling me this morning, this guy’s from Denmark, he’s from Holland, he’s from Germany, oh he was like a big-shot in Hollywood afterwards at a talent agency and we never saw him again but we loved him.

And I don’t know, these pictures are really special to me, just because they are little capsules into my grandparent’s lives together. They’re also a huge part of my life, they helped raise me, so they just mean so much. And they’re also why I got into film and I got into cameras, because like took pictures of absolutely everything and even little moments like these, so they just mean so much and have impacted my life enormously that, I don’t know I just thought it would be something nice to share and it’s a great picture.

“I brought nonna along with me because she is my source of inspiration and joy. She gave up her life to raise me as her own daughter, and this is one of the ways I pay tribute to her. Her collaboration with zine is intended to create a beautiful memory for the beautiful person she is.”

A Celebration of Process

A conversation with

Showcase Director Soham

Showcase week is what gives LARA its unique and distinct identity. This week of events, planned by the Showcase team, aims to represent the multifaceted luxury industry and to connect the LARA community with the inner workings of fashion business. It’s a celebration of process; a thoughtfully curated learning experience.

This year, the Showcase Team has amazing events planned out for LARA. Guests coming from companies ranging from the likes of Tom Ford and Tiffany & Co. to Vogue and Stock X, all representing a different side of the luxury industry and providing insight from the perspectives of varying roles within the world of retail, fashion, and buying and curating. I had the opportunity to have an in depth conversation with Soham, our Showcase Director, about his process of assembling his team and their meticulous process in putting together this week of events.

Franklin: I know that you've kind of been planning this the entire year. In the fall, you were kind of brainstorming ideas. But when it comes to the spring, it actually is such a short turnaround, so what was your process like when you're dealing with that short time frame, especially with getting a new team together, and then immediately putting that team to work. How was that for you?

Soham: Yeah, I think that from my personal experience, working on Showcase as a Showcase team member last year, that really actually gave me a lot of confidence in the feasibility of that task. Coming into it, I was like, oh my God, we have a month. How are we gonna get all these really great speakers? But it came together with a week to spare, and we did the same this year. I think that I had confidence that we were able to do it, based on our last year's success. I think we did struggle with the fact that the people we're reaching out to are very busy. We had a lot of great speakers that reached out back to us. We were in the talks with them, and they had a meeting abroad and they had to go, or they had this team meeting the next day and they couldn't make it. It's kind of hard balancing that with the fact that we have to find a different speaker for each day. So it’s a lot of organization: who’s going to reach out to whom, which days would they be available, things like that. But I think that the biggest key component to our success was sending out a lot of cold emails. Shooting a really wide net but also focusing on quality over quantity. That’s the key to making it happen in such a short amount of time. At Gala, I'm gonna give a really really warm thank you to my showcase team, because I'm really really grateful for them and all the work they've been putting in. Really proud of them.

Franklin: I know you wanted to have a streetwear person come in. That's why Stock X came in. So what went behind your thought process when thinking about what industry or what facet of it you wanted to represent or showcase and why did you choose to guess that you did?

Soham: Yeah, so that's exactly what we talked about at our first meeting. We just discussed our interests. What niches in fashion and luxury we personally are interested in, So I think that the different industries that we're showcasing are kind of representative of our interests as a showcase team this year. For example, we really wanted to have a cosmetics and luxury beauty day, which is something that we don't typically do. I think that's an underrated part of luxury and retail. I think that's something we don't showcase as much. But that's something that people in my team and me personally, I thought that was super cool, and I'm really glad that we got to reach out to brands that we're interested in. Tom Ford's my favorite cologne brand, so super crazy that we got the Vice President of marketing to talk with us. We also really wanted to showcase different kinds of roles within these industries. So for example, the role of being a buyer would be really cool to showcase when we're talking about curation. So for the day we're talking to Stock X and Moda Operandi. That's online luxury retail. What goes into the technology behind that? What goes into curating what pieces they're showcasing on the website? That's something that we really wanted to showcase too.

Franklin: I do have a question about the Vogue guest. Obviously, we're doing this magazine. And Vogue is obviously… THE magazine. Why did you guys reach out to Vogue? Whose idea was it? What was that process like talking to like a Vogue Executive?

Soham: Yeah, shoutout Liv on the Showcase team. Liv actually wrote a really cool response to what event she'd plan on her application. She looked at someone at Vogue on Linkedin, and she was like this is an aspect of fashion journalism that I want to showcase. I'm passionate about it. And I thought that's really cool. Last year we had a panel from the Business Of Fashion, and I personally really enjoyed that. It was one of my favorite showcase events. Just because it's a different aspect of it. It was interesting to hear about what stories they run and why. They had the best insight of trends, and what's going on in the fashion world. And I think that as a consumer and as an appreciator, I guess, that's what I'm doing. I'm trying to understand what I like and what's going on. In terms of Vogue, it is such a huge name, and we were really grateful to have people come in but we're also looking at different aspects of Vogue. We have the art director coming in, which is again something that we wanted to showcase, because I think that's a role with insights that we may not have heard from before.

community-building aspect of LARA. I think that I really got to know my team a lot better. I think that's the biggest insight I drew from this. Even my experience last year. We didn't know each other, but now we meet each week. We're all friends. It's nice to build that community, and I think that putting together a team is building a community. That's the biggest reflection that I had. I think that that's something that tends to get lost in all the planning. Oh, what events should we do? I really want to have the Gala on the weekend or should it be on Friday? Things like that. Those are the thoughts that I was having. But I'm making this team. These people were a bunch of strangers but now they're gonna be friends. I think that's really cool. I'm really glad they get along so well. And I'm glad that they're all really hardworking and put together a great, great week.

here i stand, as a solitary witness to a dialogue between the two.

he is rooted in the rich soil that births verdure, nourished by traces of humanity. in the garden of tranquility, prosperity is the richness of his quiet soul. she cradles him, allowing his playfulness. and he learns to indulge in her generosity…

… such freedom leads to avarice. he plucks the gypsophilas, not for their beauty, but to assert his claim. as his two hands leave marks on her body, a paradox unfolds: she, in her patience, endows him with the tools of creation and destruction. he, once innocent, now carves his name into her flesh. as he digs deeper, the wind is silenced; the flowers are smothered; the grass decays.

in this moment, she might be bruised, but he is oblivious. the march of his desires pierces through her skin, yet it foreshadows the consequences of his conduct. but she nurtures him still, with her unconditional love.

here in her arms, draped in vestments, he confesses to her:

“ive mistaken your silence for indifference, your resilience for permissiveness. in my folly, ive bent every piece of you to serve my selfish will. i owe the wind its whisper, the flowers their bloom, the grass its vigor – all tributes to you. should time reverse, could you breathe life once more into the withered bloom?”

Eden remains silent. here i am, a mere observer of this eternal cycle.

— Shirley

Photography by Shirley Zhang

Photography by Shirley Zhang

ephemerality

a photography collection

by Hailey Kim

with creative works by

Dev Lee and Shirley Zhang

an ethereal dance between transience and monotony in the fabric of the urban landscape.

even an aura that emanates profound significance is subordinate to the haunting vastness of the industrial skyline.

under the towering concrete edifices that eclipse humanity, a paradoxical sense of clarity manifests –a glimpse into the interplay of shadow and light.

a fleeting whisper of the past, present, and future remains within the walls of a black and white metropolis.

— Hailey

“Anatomic”

By Dev Lee

During moments of heightened estrangement, I craft architecture.

I retreat into myself, blindly moving through a dim and obscure cave

In the end, I always surrender, and I light myself ablaze to navigate the endless walls of bone.

When I reach the core, I extinguish the flames, sit cross-legged atop the ashes, and revel at the view of my beating heart.

I sit there endlessly counting each tear like stars, holding onto my knees with burnt arms, admiring the art I have created.

Photography by Hailey Kim

“eluding love”

By Shirley Zhang

whispering to the shadow  draped across the old armchair kneeling on the creaky floor her voice a soft, melancholic song – an invocation moonlight, curtains silhouette, candles a ghostly play her reflection haunts the air  a spiritual stillness

her confession thickens in silence her shadow listens a voice laces with the scent of black roses a memory he knows it is easy to blame the shadow when sorrow loses to the void an answer awaits he does not speak

“kids chase the love that eludes them” her love spirals in chaos the shadow rests in peace

Photography by Hailey Kim

Photography by Hailey Kim

Photography by Hailey Kim

Ephemerality

...TURNING YOUR ORBIT AROUND”